Combustion boiler controls allow combustion engineers to optimize boiler performance. To optimize the performance of a boiler, a combustion engineer balances and lowers emissions, e.g., oxygen (O2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and carbon dioxide (CO2), from the boiler. The boiler has a series of controls to adjust, for example, the amount of fuel and air supplied to a primary combustion zone in the boiler, a reburn zone, and an overfire air zone (exemplary “supervisory spaces of interest”). The boiler heat rate can be improved by increasing oxygen supply but this increases emissions. Having a three dimensional temperature map of the boiler enables the fine adjustment of boiler controls to improve heat rate and reduce emissions.
A boiler is typically measured for temperature and emissions such as NOx at intervals of twelve to eighteen months using high velocity thermocouples (HVT). This process provides a three dimensional map of boiler conditions. The process is carried out manually and the operator can generate three dimensional maps of conditions in the supervisory spaces of interest considered critical for efficient burning of the fuel and the minimization of noxious emissions. Sensor data has not been previously available for conditions at the point of combustion in real time with the location identified in three dimensions. Due to the extremely harsh conditions in the boiler it has not proven feasible to have fixed sensors in the supervisory spaces of interest in the combustion chamber.
Currently, engineers adjust the controls for a boiler combustion system without receiving immediate feedback as to the consequences of their adjustments on emissions and heat rate. Engineers do not see the results of their adjustments until after the data on emissions and heat rate subsequent to the adjustments becomes available for review. Systems exist which provide information about, for example, combustion conditions within the boiler by measuring conditions at a distance from the combustion events for which feedback is required. It would be desirable for engineers to receive prompt emissions and heat rate condition measurements directly from specific supervisory spaces of interest within the boiler to see the effect on emissions and heat rate due to adjustments being made to a boiler based on utilizing said condition measurements.